Monday, October 11, 2010

I’m going to be making a giant cupcake wedding cake in a few weeks. I’m a big believer in making practice cakes, just to make sure that the recipe works and there are no problems.

I’m not off to a good start.

The Giant Cupcake tin has it’s own issues – the top pointy bit of the cupcake tin is a lot smaller than the base part, which means they take different amounts of time to cook. The base takes about an hour, the top only needs 45 minutes so if you cook them at the same time either the top is overcooked and dry or the base is not cooked properly. I’ve dealt with this by cooking the 2 bits separately, which takes longer but is safer in the long run.

I made the base section on Sunday – not great, a bit dark looking, but looked OK and most likely edible. So tonight I thought I would make the top section so I could take it to work tomorrow for afternoon tea. It looked good until I tried to turn it out of the tin, and it didn’t fall out of the tin straight away like it is supposed to:

The uncooked bit is from the bottom of the tin. The top was cooked properly, and the edges were pulling in from the sides of the tin. It must be the white chocolate chips I added. They seem to have fallen to the bottom of the mixture and then not cooked properly while the outside went very brown. Argh!

This is why I make practice cakes. Although I am annoyed now, imagine how stressed I would be if this happened the day before the wedding and I had to start again from scratch. Luckily I still have a few more weeks to go.

Monday, October 4, 2010

32 blocks, all different but from cream/brown/aqua/red combination. These are foundation pieced on Ricky Tims Stable Stuff, which can be left in and kind of dissolves when it gets wet. (apparently, haven’t tested it out yet)

I’ve had a migraine/nausea most of the weekend for some reason, so I thought these blocks would take ages to do. But once I set up a production line and precut all the pieces, it went surprisingly fast. I did have to sew and iron in fits and starts

Still deciding how to applique the little cats on these – I hate doing hand blanket stitch applique, so I am leaning towards invisible machine applique and then add hand embroidered details like the tails and whiskers. Same for all the ponies.

Still need to do more little squares for the outside of these blocks, which I can manage too do in little bits of time before and after work. I’ve been getting up earlier (on work days, not on the weekends) and spending 20-30 minutes sewing before I leave in the morning. These little bits of sewing really add up and by the end of the week I have heaps finished. Feels like I am achieving something instead of just plodding along with this one.